Did Jesus, Buddha & Mohammed really exist?

[Unkotare]

Well, it is hard to tell. you are the internet equivlent to a crazy homeless person who screams at lamposts...

And you are still and forever a faceless nobody hiding under his desk and only daring to mutter under his breath here online about your idiotic Marxist fantasies.

Well, at least I can hold down a job... .

As long as you pretend to look busy, hide when the boss is around, and keep your idiotic fantasies to yourself everywhere but here, right cog?

 

[Saigon]

Unkotare -

You might have noticed that a number of your posts from last week were removed from the board.

If you smart, you may take that as a sign that your constant masturbatory posting is not entirely welcome.

Well, it is hard to tell. you are the internet equivlent to a crazy homeless person who screams at lamposts...

That defines Unkto perfectly!

 

[Saigon]

Probably. But the Jesus that did live didn't look like the blue eyed Anglo that people worship.

In reality he probably looked more like Saddam Hussein.
.

That's true!!

A disturbing thought...but very true.

Why is that disturbing?

You don't think the idea that Jesus might look like Saddam is...um....off-putting?

 

[there4eyeM]

What is the difference between hallucination and perception?

Is this 'too heavy' for anyone to answer?

I'll admit, I'm kinda' stuck.

Honest answer, and pretty accurate.

Hallucinations are the ultimate in democracy; if two people see something, it's there. If only one does or doesn't (there are positive and negative hallucinations), we don't know. If two out of three see it or not, it is 'real'.

Sometimes, entire cultures see things that aren't there (like racial differences, for example). They sometimes don't see things that are there (like unrealistic economic or political situations, for example).

If everyone at a wedding sees water turned into wine, it happened.

 

[there4eyeM]

That's true!!

A disturbing thought...but very true.

Why is that disturbing?

You don't think the idea that Jesus might look like Saddam is...um....off-putting?

Ah, my son, God often works in mysterious ways!

 

[Gracie]

Do I thnk any of them existed? Yes. And am thankful they did.

 

[Gracie]

I picture Jesus as dark haired, dark eyes, maybe a bit of a crooked nose, swarthy skinned, slender yet some muscle due to all the walking he did. I do not like pictures of Him as blonde and blue eyed, with very white skin.

 

[there4eyeM]

I picture Jesus as dark haired, dark eyes, maybe a bit of a crooked nose, swarthy skinned, slender yet some muscle due to all the walking he did. I do not like pictures of Him as blonde and blue eyed, with very white skin.

In other words, he probably did not look a great deal different from Mohammed.

 

[Gracie]

He probably looked very much like anyone in the middle east.

 

[Saigon]

Well, there are several things you have to consider, in your skepticism.

1) There are any number of things that go on every day around us that are truly miraculous, but because they're common - ordinary miracles, you might say - and because science has observed a lot about how they happen, we go "Ho hum" and ignore them, assuming that because science tells us how, that means it has told us why.

2) Lots and lots of people have wandered around throughout history, expounding on their viewpoints and beliefs and trying to gain followers, and most of them never get paid any attention, and of those who DO get attention and followers, nearly all of their "religions" die out right after the "prophet" or "Messiah" or however they style themselves does. Almost none of them manage to produce anything lasting. Jesus, Mohammed, and the various Buddhas (because there have been more than one, although Siddhartha Guatama is generally considered the Supreme Buddha) all managed to start movements that lasted centuries and attracted hundreds of millions of followers long after their deaths. That's pretty freaking amazing, and makes them special, whatever you might think.

3) Usually, the only evidence we have for ANYTHING that anyone did centuries before we existed is exactly the same evidence we have for the miracles of Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha: eyewitness testimony. Sure, you can go to Europe and see old stone forts littering the landscape, but what evidence do you really have for who built them and how and why? Mostly, you have the testimony of people who claim to have been there. It's up to you how trustworthy you consider those witnesses to have been, and whether or not you WANT to believe what they have to say.

These are all very good points.

I do agree with 3), that little physical evidence is possible 2,000 years after the events took place.

I also kinda agree that there are miracles everyday, although this has never convinced me that God and not coincidence are the cause, given the number of "miracles" which seem to be curses.

We all know good, Christian families who have lost their house to fire, their children to illness, their business to fraud. I can not think of those as "trials" - to me they suggest that there is no benign saviour watching over his flock.

 

[S.J.]

He probably looked very much like anyone in the middle east.

If he was the son of God, I'm sure he was probably very unique in his appearance.

 

[Unkotare]

Unkotare -

You might have noticed that a number of your posts from last week were removed from the board.

If you smart [sic], you may take that as a sign that your constant masturbatory posting is not entirely welcome.

If me smart? You generous give me advice, pisshead, but me no need you help. If you smart, you go back do more learn English.

Stick to the topic of the thread instead of continuing to make an ass of yourself, buffoon.

 

[Unkotare]

We all know good, Christian families who have lost their house to fire, their children to illness, their business to fraud. I can not think of those as "trials" - to me they suggest that there is no benign saviour watching over his flock.

What a shock that you would be arrogant enough to presume to know God's plan. How out of character.

 

[Unkotare]

He probably looked very much like anyone in the middle east.

If he was the son of God, I'm sure he was probably very unique in his appearance.

Quite the opposite. That's the point.

 

[JoeB131]

[

No doubt we do have different definitions of evidence. I take into account human nature and don't expect photocopies of birth certificates.

However, you are now in the position of basically denying the existence of the early church. You seem to be of the opinion that it suddenly burst into existence in the 2nd century. That seems a tad odd to me, but to each his own.

No, I'm not denying the existence of the early church. Just it's pedigree. If you look at Jesus, he has waaaayyy too much in common with characters like Sarapis and Mithras, phony God-men who proceeded him.

The real problem was that you had this urban legend that appeared, someone in the "Early Church" as you say decided they needed to get their story straight. SO a whole bunch of Gospels appeared. Then when the "Early CHurch" became the "State Religion" in the 4th century (The Dark Ages were the first Faith Based Iniative), they went through those 200 Gospels and found the four that best reflected the "official" story they wanted to tell.

 

[JoeB131]

[
As long as you pretend to look busy, hide when the boss is around, and keep your idiotic fantasies to yourself everywhere but here, right cog?

Actually, I more like the guy the boss goes to when he needs something done, but that's okay, having not been able to hold down a job, ever, without your medication, you probably don't get that.

Seriously, guy, you need to get back on your meds...

 

[jtpr312]

Flavius Josephus;
"Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,—a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; ( Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3, section 3).

Interesting you post this. Because most of the people familiar with Josephus writing don't think he wrote this.

They think it was added by Christian Priests.

There is some debate, not most of the people familiar with it, as to whether he actually wrote this or not, but until that it's verified that he didn't, which has not been done yet, I'll stick with it, and with the opinion of the many who believe he did. Furthermore, there is zero debate about the other mention of Jesus in his writings, intersting you did NOT post that.


Opinion on the authenticity of this passage is varied. Louis H. Feldman surveyed the relevant literature from 1937 to 1980 in Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Feldman noted that 4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.

There are also arguments of various quality that aim to show that the Testimonium Flavianum is partially authentic.


1.The argument is made that much of the vocabulary and style matches that of Josephus. His opening phrase, "Now about this time..." is used regularly to the point of nausea. The description of Jesus as "a wise man" is not typically Christian, but it is used by Josephus of, for example, Solomon and Daniel. Similarly, Christians did not refer to Jesus' miracles as "astonishing deeds" (paradoxa erga), but exactly the same expression is used by Josephus of the miracles of Elisha. And the description of Christians as a "tribe" (phylon) occurs nowhere in early Christian literature, while Josephus uses the word both for the Jewish "race" and for other national or communal groups.
John P. Meier concludes the following from his analysis of the vocabulary of the Testimonium compared to Josephus and to the New Testament: "No one of these differences means all that much; but the accumulated evidence of all these differences may point to an author who is not taking his material from the NT...The upshot of all this is that, apart from Christianon, not one word of what I identify as the original text of the Testimonium fails to occur elsewhere in Josephus, usually with the same meaning and/or construction. As indicated in the first part of this note, the same cannot be said of the NT." (pp. 81-82)

Meier writes: "The comparison of vocabulary between Josephus and the NT does not provide a neat solution to the problem of authenticity but it does force us to ask which of two possible scenarios is more probable. Did a Christian of some unknown century so immerse himself in the vocabulary and style of Josephus that, without the aid of any modern dictionaries and concordances, he was able to (1) strip himself of the NT vocabulary with which he would naturally speak of Jesus and (2) reproduce perfectly the Greek of Josephus for most of the Testimonium -- no doubt to create painstakingly an air of verisimilitude -- while at the same time destroying the air with a few patently Christian affirmations? Or is it more likely that the core statement, (1) which we first isolated simply by extracting what would strike anyone at first glance as Christian affirmations, and (2) which we then found to be written in typically Josephan vocabulary that diverged from the usage of the NT, was in fact written by Josephus himself? Of the two scenarios, I find the second much more probable." (p. 63)

Against this contention, it is maintained that a scribe who had been copying Josephus for the previous 17 books would be able to acquire without effort some characteristics of the author's style. For example, the fact that the phrase "Now about this time..." was used very regularly means that it would come to the pen of a reader of Josephus without difficulty and without the need to postulate that the interpolater was attempting to create versimilitude.

Moreover, it is maintained that the vocabulary of the Testimonium is just as well understood to be the vocabulary of Eusebius. The description of Jesus as a "wise man" is an intentional contrast to the description of men such as Apollonius as a GOHS. The description of Jesus' miracles as "astonishing deeds" is, as Olson points out, "markedly Eusebian." Finally, a reference to Christianity as a tribe (phylon) is found in Justin Martyr (Dialogue 119.4), and such a reference is found in Eusebius himself (Ecclesiastical History 3.33.2, 3.33.3).

Finally, this argument is invalidated by the elements of the Testimonium that contradict the style of Josephus: the three examples noted by Mason above and the reference to "the leading men among us."


2.James H. Charlesworth argues: "We can be confident that there was a minimal reference to Jesus...because once the clearly Christian sections are removed, the rest makes good grammatical and historical sense. The peculiarly Christian words are paranthetically connected to the narrative; hence they are grammatically free and could easily have been inserted by a Christian. These sections also are disruptive, and when they are removed the flow of thought is improved and smoother. For example, once the reference to the resurrection is deleted, the thought moves from Christian continuance active after the crucifixion to the nonextinct nature of the tribe." (pp. 93-94)
Against this, it is maintained that the so-called "Christian sections" are integral parts of the text. The phrase "for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure" refers to the phrase "if it be lawful to call him a man" and, in the present text, explains why Jesus is considered to be more than a man. The phrase "He was the Christ" is presupposed by the phrase that the "tribe of Christians" is named from him, as it has been argued above. And the phrase concerning the resurrection provides the explanation for why those who loved Jesus did not cease to do so. Although it is possible to consider these phrases to be parenthetical, it is also possible to see them as part and parcel of the entire text.

Moreover, if this argument is valid, then it should be valid to excise the entire Testimonium Flavianum because it is parenthetical and because the flow of thought is interrupted by the passage (see the argument above).


3.Steve Mason states, "To have created the testimonium out of whole cloth would be an act of unparalleled scribal audacity." (p. 171) On the contrary, such audacity is paralleled by the extensive interpolations found in the Slavonic Josephus. Concerning the Slavonic Josephus, Meier writes:

The clearly unauthentic text is a long interpolation found only in the Old Russian (popularly known as the "Slavonic") version of The Jewish War, surviving in Russian and Rumanian manuscripts. This pasage is a wildly garbled condensation of various Gospel events, seasoned with the sort of bizarre legendary expansions found in apocryphal gospels and acts of the 2d and 3d centuries. Despite the spirited and ingenious attempts of Robert Eisler to defend the authenticity of much of the Jesus material in the Slavonic Jewish War, almost all critics today discount this theory. In more recent decades, G. A. Williamson stood in a hopeless minority when he tried to maintain the authenticity of this and similar interpolations, which obviously come from a Christian hand (though not necessarily an orthodox one). (p. 57)
Meier adds further bibliographic detail on the Slavonic Josephus on pp. 71-72 n. 5.


http://http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html

 

[JoeB131]

Flavius Josephus;
"Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,—a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; ( Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3, section 3).

Interesting you post this. Because most of the people familiar with Josephus writing don't think he wrote this.

They think it was added by Christian Priests.

There is some debate whether he actually wrote this or not, but until that it's verified that he didn't, which has not been done yet, I'll stick with it, and with the opinion of the many who believe he did. Furthermore, there is zero debate about the other mention of Jesus in his writings, intersting you did NOT post that.

There's no debate at all about whether that forgery was a forgery.

For the other reference to Jesus, the phrase is taken out of context. If you read the whole text, the "Jesus" referred to as the brother of James is a high priest who was having a power struggle, not your magic God Man.

 

[Unkotare]

[
As long as you pretend to look busy, hide when the boss is around, and keep your idiotic fantasies to yourself everywhere but here, right cog?

Actually, I [sic] more like the guy the boss goes to when he needs something done...

You more like that guy? Your English is almost as poor as Miss Saigon's.




Oh, and you still suck at guessing, cog.

 

[jtpr312]

Interesting you post this. Because most of the people familiar with Josephus writing don't think he wrote this.

They think it was added by Christian Priests.

There is some debate whether he actually wrote this or not, but until that it's verified that he didn't, which has not been done yet, I'll stick with it, and with the opinion of the many who believe he did. Furthermore, there is zero debate about the other mention of Jesus in his writings, intersting you did NOT post that.

There's no debate at all about whether that forgery was a forgery.

For the other reference to Jesus, the phrase is taken out of context. If you read the whole text, the "Jesus" referred to as the brother of James is a high priest who was having a power struggle, not your magic God Man.

Dumbass says what?
Opinion on the authenticity of this passage is varied. Louis H. Feldman surveyed the relevant literature from 1937 to 1980 in Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Feldman noted that 4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.


Arguments that the Testimonium is Authentic
There are also arguments of various quality that aim to show that the Testimonium Flavianum is partially authentic.


1.The argument is made that much of the vocabulary and style matches that of Josephus. His opening phrase, "Now about this time..." is used regularly to the point of nausea. The description of Jesus as "a wise man" is not typically Christian, but it is used by Josephus of, for example, Solomon and Daniel. Similarly, Christians did not refer to Jesus' miracles as "astonishing deeds" (paradoxa erga), but exactly the same expression is used by Josephus of the miracles of Elisha. And the description of Christians as a "tribe" (phylon) occurs nowhere in early Christian literature, while Josephus uses the word both for the Jewish "race" and for other national or communal groups.
John P. Meier concludes the following from his analysis of the vocabulary of the Testimonium compared to Josephus and to the New Testament: "No one of these differences means all that much; but the accumulated evidence of all these differences may point to an author who is not taking his material from the NT...The upshot of all this is that, apart from Christianon, not one word of what I identify as the original text of the Testimonium fails to occur elsewhere in Josephus, usually with the same meaning and/or construction. As indicated in the first part of this note, the same cannot be said of the NT." (pp. 81-82)

Meier writes: "The comparison of vocabulary between Josephus and the NT does not provide a neat solution to the problem of authenticity but it does force us to ask which of two possible scenarios is more probable. Did a Christian of some unknown century so immerse himself in the vocabulary and style of Josephus that, without the aid of any modern dictionaries and concordances, he was able to (1) strip himself of the NT vocabulary with which he would naturally speak of Jesus and (2) reproduce perfectly the Greek of Josephus for most of the Testimonium -- no doubt to create painstakingly an air of verisimilitude -- while at the same time destroying the air with a few patently Christian affirmations? Or is it more likely that the core statement, (1) which we first isolated simply by extracting what would strike anyone at first glance as Christian affirmations, and (2) which we then found to be written in typically Josephan vocabulary that diverged from the usage of the NT, was in fact written by Josephus himself? Of the two scenarios, I find the second much more probable." (p. 63)

Against this contention, it is maintained that a scribe who had been copying Josephus for the previous 17 books would be able to acquire without effort some characteristics of the author's style. For example, the fact that the phrase "Now about this time..." was used very regularly means that it would come to the pen of a reader of Josephus without difficulty and without the need to postulate that the interpolater was attempting to create versimilitude.

Moreover, it is maintained that the vocabulary of the Testimonium is just as well understood to be the vocabulary of Eusebius. The description of Jesus as a "wise man" is an intentional contrast to the description of men such as Apollonius as a GOHS. The description of Jesus' miracles as "astonishing deeds" is, as Olson points out, "markedly Eusebian." Finally, a reference to Christianity as a tribe (phylon) is found in Justin Martyr (Dialogue 119.4), and such a reference is found in Eusebius himself (Ecclesiastical History 3.33.2, 3.33.3).

Finally, this argument is invalidated by the elements of the Testimonium that contradict the style of Josephus: the three examples noted by Mason above and the reference to "the leading men among us."


2.James H. Charlesworth argues: "We can be confident that there was a minimal reference to Jesus...because once the clearly Christian sections are removed, the rest makes good grammatical and historical sense. The peculiarly Christian words are paranthetically connected to the narrative; hence they are grammatically free and could easily have been inserted by a Christian. These sections also are disruptive, and when they are removed the flow of thought is improved and smoother. For example, once the reference to the resurrection is deleted, the thought moves from Christian continuance active after the crucifixion to the nonextinct nature of the tribe." (pp. 93-94)
Against this, it is maintained that the so-called "Christian sections" are integral parts of the text. The phrase "for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure" refers to the phrase "if it be lawful to call him a man" and, in the present text, explains why Jesus is considered to be more than a man. The phrase "He was the Christ" is presupposed by the phrase that the "tribe of Christians" is named from him, as it has been argued above. And the phrase concerning the resurrection provides the explanation for why those who loved Jesus did not cease to do so. Although it is possible to consider these phrases to be parenthetical, it is also possible to see them as part and parcel of the entire text.

Moreover, if this argument is valid, then it should be valid to excise the entire Testimonium Flavianum because it is parenthetical and because the flow of thought is interrupted by the passage (see the argument above).


3.Steve Mason states, "To have created the testimonium out of whole cloth would be an act of unparalleled scribal audacity." (p. 171) On the contrary, such audacity is paralleled by the extensive interpolations found in the Slavonic Josephus. Concerning the Slavonic Josephus, Meier writes:

The clearly unauthentic text is a long interpolation found only in the Old Russian (popularly known as the "Slavonic") version of The Jewish War, surviving in Russian and Rumanian manuscripts. This pasage is a wildly garbled condensation of various Gospel events, seasoned with the sort of bizarre legendary expansions found in apocryphal gospels and acts of the 2d and 3d centuries. Despite the spirited and ingenious attempts of Robert Eisler to defend the authenticity of much of the Jesus material in the Slavonic Jewish War, almost all critics today discount this theory. In more recent decades, G. A. Williamson stood in a hopeless minority when he tried to maintain the authenticity of this and similar interpolations, which obviously come from a Christian hand (though not necessarily an orthodox one). (p. 57)
Meier adds further bibliographic detail on the Slavonic Josephus on pp. 71-72 n. 5.


4.It is sometimes argued that it is unlikely that the Testimonium was inserted whole-cloth into this part of Josephus' Antiquities. "Further," as Sanders observes, "the passage on Jesus is not adjacent to Josephus' account of John the Baptist, which is probably where a Christian scribe would have put it had he invented the entire paragraph." (p. 50) Meier explains this point in detail:

A final curiousity encompasses not the Testimonium taken by itself but the relation of the Testimonium to the longer narrative about John the Baptist in Ant. 18.5.2, 116-119, a text accepted as authentic by almost all scholars. The two passages are in no way related to each other in Josephus. The earlier, shorter passage about Jesus is placed in a context of Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judea; the later, longer passage about John is placed in a context dealing with Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee in Perea. Separated by time, space, and placement in Book 18, Jesus and the Baptist (in that order!) have absolutely nothing to do with each other in the mind and narrative of Josephus. Such a presentation totally contradicts -- indeed, it is the direct opposite of -- the NT portrait of the Baptist, who is always treated briefly as the forerunner of the main character, Jesus. Viewed as a whole, the treatment of Jesus and John in Book 18 of The Antiquities is simply inconceivable as the work of a Christian of any period. (p. 66)
I do not challenge the authenticity of the John the Baptist passage. However, the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum remains in doubt. As Eusebius shows in his quotation in the Ecclesiastical History, it is possible that the Testimonium at one point was placed after the passage on John the Baptist. Moreover, the interpolator need not have inserted the passage after the one on John the Baptist; to place the passage among the accounts concerning Pilate is at least equally compelling, if not moreso.


5.James Charlesworth writes: "Josephus must have made a reference to Jesus because the passage, divested of the obvious Christian words, is not Christian and is composed in such a way that it is very difficult to attribute to a Christian. What Christian would refer to Jesus' miracles in such a way that a reader could understand them as merely 'surprising works'? Would a Christian have written that 'first-rate men' or 'men of the highest standing amongst us' accused Jesus before Pilate, leaving the impression that he deserved a guilty verdict? Would a Christian scribe have ended a reference to Jesus by referring to 'the tribe of Christians' who 'are not extinct,' as if they should soon become extinct?" (p. 93)
The argument on the non-extinction of Christianity is also made in more detail by Meier: "But the phrase does not stand in isolation; it is the subject of the statement that this tribe has not died out or disappeared down to Josephus' day. The implication seems to be one of surprise: granted Jesus' shameful end (with no new life mentioned in the core text), one is amazed to note, says Josephus, that this group of post-mortem lovers is still at it and has not disappeared even in our own day (does Josephus have in the back of his mind Nero's attempt to get it to disappear?). I detect in the sentence as a whole something dismissive if not hostile (though any hostility here is aimed at Christians, not Jesus): one would have thought that this 'tribe' of lovers of a crucified man might have disappeared. This does not sound like an interpolation by a Christian of any stripe." (p. 66)

Concerning the argument that an interpolator would not comment that the Christians had not yet become extinct, the passage does not imply that the Christians should soon become extinct. Moreover, the statement is just the kind to be expected if the forger were Eusebius. As Olson explains, Eusebius made the argument that Christianity is validated because the followers of Jesus did not abandon him after the crucifixion. The phrase is thus seen to suit Eusebius' apologetic purposes quite nicely.

Concerning whether the passage leaves the impression that Jesus deserved a guilty verdict, Earl Doherty reaches the opposite conclusion: "The words and their context give the impression that the crucifixion was due to 'an accusation made by men of the highest standing among us,' that this was the execution of a wise and loved man, a teacher of truth who was obviously innocent. Nothing could better reflect the Gospel image. But that would mean that Pilate had acted improperly, or that he had been misled or coerced by others. There could be no basis on which Josephus would be led to interpret the event this way, much less put it in writing for a Roman audience. There would have been no channel through which such a judgment would come to him that he would have accepted. And no way he could have avoided explaining himself if he did." (p. 213)

Concerning the reference to "surprising works" (paradoxa erga), it is noted that Eusebius is one Christian who would refer to Jesus' miracles in this way (Ecclesiastical History 1.2.23). Also, if this phrase were used by Josephus, it would not in any way be diminutive. The same phrase is used by Josephus to describe the miracles of Elisha, for example (Ant. 9.182).


Educate yourself stupid.
http://http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html